Fitbit Charge 2

The Fitbit Charge 2 does everything the Fitbit Charge HR can, along with new idle alerts, automatic activity tracking, guided breathing sessions, interchangeable bands, and the option to connect your phone for GPS.

The Charge 2 ($149.95), coming out in September, is the most promising new fitness tracker we've seen from Fitbit in some time. It automatically tracks your calories burned, distance traveled, heart rate, steps, and sleep, and it can help you return your breathing to normal after a workout. There's no built-in GPS, but you can connect your phone to help capture routes and calculate lap splits. Plus, the Charge 2's display is modular, so you can pop it out and place it in a variety of different bands. Basically, it does everything our long-running Editors' Choice, the Fitbit Charge HR, can do, with even more features and an improved design. We spent some time with the new tracker running on beta software ahead of its release.

Design and Display The Charge 2 looks and feels a lot like the Fitbit Alta. It's slightly larger, but it has the same basic design—a silicone bracelet with a rectangular OLED display module in the middle. There's a single button on the left side of the display, and a built-in continuous optical heart rate monitor underneath.

Like the Alta and the Blaze, the Charge 2 has a modular design, so you can pop out the display and swap it into different leather and silicone bands. The bands come in three sizes: Small (for wrists 5.5 to 6.5 inches in circumference), Large (6.5 to 7.7 inches), and XL (7.7 to 8.9 inches). For $149.95, you get the Charge 2 with a stainless steel frame and a band in black, blue, plum, or teal. For $179.95, you can get a Special Edition model with a gunmetal frame and black band, or a rose gold frame and lavender band. Additional bands cost $29.95, while leather straps in brown, pink, and indigo cost $69.95. A simple push-slide mechanism pops the display module right off the band.

Like the Charge HR, the Charge 2 uses a watch-style buckle design, so it's easy to fasten around your wrist. It's not nearly as slight and stylish as the Misfit Ray, but it's a lot more discreet than the bulky Microsoft Band 2 or Fitbit's own Surge.

The tracker's rectangular OLED display is a lot larger than the Charge HR's tiny one-line screen. It allows you to view multiple lines of information at once, and letters and numbers are more legible. The display is still monochrome, though, and it can appear faint and reflective outdoors in direct sunlight (there are no settings to adjust screen brightness). It also attracts fingerprints easily, an issue shared by the Fitbit Alta.

The Charge 2 is resistant to rain, sweat, and splashes. However, you'll want to keep it away from pools and showers.

On a full charge, the tracker should last five days, which is on par with Fitbit's other devices. As usual, you get a proprietary charger, so you'll need to buy a replacement if you lose or break it. Each Fitbit device uses a different charger, so you can't use the one that came with your Charge or Charge HR, which is frustrating.

Features

The Charge 2 tracks your active minutes, calories, distance, steps, heart rate, and sleep. Additionally, it offers regular reminders to get up and move, a new feature first introduced with the Fitbit Alta (the Fitbit Blaze will also receive this ability in a future software update). After about an hour of inactivity, the Charge 2 will vibrate and display a graphic that tells you to walk 250 steps before you return to your seat (a number that you can adjust).

You can choose a variety of clock faces for the display, and switch between horizontal or vertical text layouts. I wasn't able to try this feature as the software on my demo unit is not yet final, but the default vertical, digital display works well since it stacks numbers and stats on top of one another in an easy-to-view manner.

To control the Charge 2, you use a combination of the physical button on the side of the display and tapping the display itself. There are five screens you can cycle through: Time of Day, Heart Rate, Activities, Stopwatch, and Relax. The main screen shows you the time of day, the date, and a fitness stat. On the Heart Rate screen, you can tap to view continuous or resting heart rate. On the Activities screen, you tap to cycle through biking, elliptical, running, weights, treadmill, and workout; hold the button and you'll start to track the activity.

Also on the Activities screen, you'll find an option for Interval Workout, which is a new feature that lets you set a length of time you want to be active, as well as a rest time after, and the number of intervals you want to accomplish. When each time is up, the band vibrates to alert you to move to the next phase of the workout. For example, runners can create intervals for sprints: run, rest, repeat.

Like the Alta and the Blaze (but unlike the Charge HR), the Charge 2 automatically tracks exercises like basketball, biking, hiking, running, and more. But it takes upwards of 10 to 15 minutes to register that you're doing an activity, so if you just want to go for a quick jog, you'll want to trigger it manually.

The Charge 2 doesn't have built-in GPS, but you can connect it with the GPS on your phone to see real-time stats on your run, like distance and pace. Post-workout, you can see your route and lap splits. For comparison, the Blaze also connects to your phone for GPS, while the Surge already has it built in.

The new Relax mode is a guided breathing exercise based on your heart rate. You can select between two- and five-minute sessions, in which you match your breathing to a contracting and expanding circle on the tracker's display. The goal is to reduce anxiety, stress, and to return your breathing to normal after a workout.

The updated Fitbit app shows your cardio fitness level, complete with VO2 Max, like Polar does. With that info, you can see how far along you are in your progress and figure out how you can improve your workouts with some in-app guidance. You can also compare that data with other users in the Fitbit community.

A Fitbit for the Future The Fitbit Charge HR is one of our favorite trackers, and the Charge 2 looks to be a worthy replacement. It has all of the same features as the Charge HR, plus new ones like a larger display, idle alerts, interchangeable bands, and modes to help improve the way you work out and recover. Check back for a complete review and rating when it hits stores in September.